ISD's Testimonial on participation in IT Ukraine

Valeriy Sharov

CEO in ISD

ISD has joined the Association back in 2005. Unlike the traditional industries, the IT-industry arose as a new and obscure phenomenon for officials. And thanks to the work of the Association, we managed to convey to the state authorities the correct understanding of what we actually do; to establish a dialogue with the government and move from pressure and rigid regulation to co-operation.

Without exaggeration, the Association at the national level has created an environment for communication, exchange of experience, an organization of joint sector projects, conferences, development of industry standards and systems of competencies for IT-specialists. And all these things work great and bring benefits to all members of the community and the market as a whole.

On the international scene, the Association carried out extensive work to promote Ukraine as a reliable business partner in the IT-sector. However, the challenge for the coming years is to realize and develop what the Ukrainian IT-industry differs from that in the rival countries - I hope it will be quality, originality of thinking and commitment to customers. Otherwise, we will be on the same stage with many other developing countries and try to occupy the same niche. But we have much better initial conditions - a generation of engineers and scientists, a powerful industry, at a time when many of our competitors start from scratch. Those initial conditions need to be able to implement, and for this purpose, it is necessary to revive a high-quality education system, to develop the infrastructure of cities, to establish convenient transport links within the country and with the most important world centers.

Over the next 3-5 years, we have to consolidate the image of Ukraine as a country where Software Development is expensive, but it sells the product qualitatively and right in time. And for this, the players of the market must unite their efforts.